Calling for Ginsburg’s recusal is hypocritical
A recently published letter spoke about how Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg should recuse herself based only upon her “impartiality towards our now President Trump.”
When same-sex marriage rights were under the social microscope, many Christian and social conservative groups called for Justice Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan to recuse themselves because they both previously officiated at gay weddings.
Perhaps former Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout Catholic who openly professed that he “believes in Satan,” also should have recused himself from the hearing due to his potentially prejudiced preconceived religion inspired “moral” convictions.
Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said:
“There’s a widespread misperception that it’s somehow improper for justices to have opinions about legal issues before they hear cases about those issues... We select justices because they are legal experts; of course they will have opinions on those issues. We can ask them to keep an open mind, but we can’t ask them to have an empty head, and we wouldn’t want them to, either. It’s wrong for judges to prejudge factual questions before hearing evidence, but they should have pre-existing opinions about legal issues.”
How hypocritical it is that when decisions don’t go as we wished, we cry foul at the justices and label them as “biased,” “unelected” and/or “radical,” yet we are willing to intentionally corrupt a system and boldly violate the Constitution, as we precisely did with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, whenever we have the opportunity to cheat the system in order to achieve a desired outcome.
Recusals aside, there are some issues that should never be put to a vote or judicial review in the first place, such as marriage and abortion rights, as they are both immensely personal and private issues and simply nobody else’s business.
Gerrard Wilbur
Bradenton
This story was originally published July 10, 2017 at 11:23 AM with the headline "Calling for Ginsburg’s recusal is hypocritical."